MADAME DACIER.

The husband of this celebrated woman (Andre Dacier) was born at Castres in 1651, and studied at Saumur, under Tanneguy le Fèvre, whose daughter Anne he married in 1683. Both the husband and wife became eminent among the classical scholars of the seventeenth century. They were employed with others to comment upon and edit a series of the ancient authors, for the Dauphin, which form the collection "Ad usum Delphini." Madame Dacier's commentaries are considered as superior to those of her husband. She edited "Callimachus," "Florus," "Aurelius Victor," "Etropius," and the history which goes by the name of "Dictys Cretensis," all of which have been repeatedly reprinted, with her notes. She published French translations of the "Amphitryon," "Rudens," and "Lepidicus," of Plautus, with a good preface, of the comedies of Terence, of the "Plutus," and "The Clouds," of Aristophanes, and of Anacreon and Sappho. She also translated the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey," with a preface and notes. This led to a controversy between her and La Motte, who had spoken slightingly of Homer. Madame Dacier wrote, in 1714, "Considérations sur les Causes de la Corruption du Goût," in which she defended the cause of Homer with great vivacity, as she did also against Father Hardouin, who had written an "Apology of Homer," which was more a censure than an apology. The warmth, however, with which both the Daciers resented any thing that was said against the ancient writers was carried to the extreme, and had, at times, something ludicrous in it. But Madame Dacier's enthusiasm was real, and unaccompanied by pedantry or conceit. She died in 1820.